Handling of $250 million contract for 2016 flood recovery illustrates the extent of political corruption in Louisiana

The truth is, we’ve become so inured to political sleaze in Louisiana politics that it’s become difficult to be either surprised or outraged, leaving only indifference as our emotion of choice.

All the ingredients are in place for graft, corruption, and exploitation and there are plenty of those more than willing to take advantage of the opportunity:

A contract to manage Louisiana’s flood recovery program worth anywhere from 16 percent to 22 percent of $1.6 billion in federal funds;

A former state senator, Larry Bankston, convicted two decades ago on two counts of racketeering who now advises the State Contractor Licensing Board that has managed to insert itself into the debate over the proposed contract;

Claims of bid irregularities by a losing bidder;

Support of that claim by Bankston who neglected to mention that his son worked for one of the losing bidders;

Cancellation by the state of the $250,000 contract so that it may be re-advertised;

A potential 2019 gubernatorial candidate questioning the propriety of Bankston’s employment by that state board;

Up to 150,000 homes and nearly half-a-million residents affected by Louisiana floods in 2016, many of whom are still waiting for the political inertia called Restore Louisiana to start things moving so they can get back into their flooded homes.

Anytime there’s big money involved, especially federal money, the potential always exists for political and legal jockeying and manipulation. The temptation can be overwhelming.

The fact that the plight of the state’s flood victims has been obscured, seemingly forgotten, in the process of too-long delayed recovery only makes the state of affairs all the more shameful and disgusting. But when you have no voice, you are quickly forgotten in the scramble for big bucks.

And the bigger the bucks, the more greed manifests itself. And the more the greed, the less focus there is on the victims. That’s the way it’s always been and apparently that’s the way it will always be.

And hardly addressed is the issue of just what the deliverables on such a contract would be. Here we have companies crawling all over each other in order to obtain a contract which represents 20 percent of the total allocation for flood recovery.

And those companies won’t put up the first piece of drywall or sheetrock. They won’t perform any plumbing or electrical work. They won’t install any flooring or apply the first coat of paint, nor will they hammer the first nail. In short, they will do nothing meaningful toward flood recovery other than to approve payments to those who do the actual work.

But they will collect up to 20 percent of the recovery money—likely more if they can succeed at the usual practice of coming back for a contract amendment a few months down the road.

This story has received fairly significant play in the Baton Rouge area but if you’ve not kept up with The Advocate’s coverage, here’s essentially what has transpired:

A team led by IEM, a North Carolina company affiliated with several Baton Rouge engineering and consulting firms, easily had the best score—by at least 16 points—among the five teams submitting proposals and also quoted the lowest price—$250 million.

But PDRM, led by CSRS of Baton Rouge, whose bid was $65 million higher, filed an official complaint with the State Licensing Board for Contractors, pointing out that IEM did not possess a commercial contractor’s license at the time of its bid.

The Request for Proposals issued by the state, however, said only that bidding companies had to possess a license or be able to obtain one. IEM did, in fact, obtain a license prior to the time bids were opened. Ironically, PDRM, the company which blew the whistle on IEM, did not possess a contractor’s license at the time it submitted its bid either.

Bankston, legal counsel for the licensing board, opined that eligible bidders needed a contractor’s license at the time of bid submissions—and the licensing board agreed. The following day, March 17, the state decided to CANCELIEM’s contract and re-bid the project.

By offering the opinion that he did, apparently disqualifying both IEM and PDRM in the process, the winning bid would have then gone to the third lowest bidder had not the administration decided to pull the plug on the whole thing and start over.

That third company whose bid was $350 million, $100 million higher than IEM, was Rebuild Louisiana Now and was led by a Texas firm called SLS. SLS also owns a company called DRC Emergency Services. Bankston’s son, Benjamin Bankston, works as regional manager for DRC. Larry Bankston said he was unaware his son’s firm had any relationship to any of the bidding companies when he wrote his opinion.

DRC had its own legal problems back in 2012 over payments and gratuities the company was accused of giving former Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle after the firm received two CONTRACTS from the then-sheriff totaling more than $3 million.

In March 2002, the Louisiana Supreme Court REVOKEDBankston’s law license after his conviction on two counts of racketeering in 1997 in connection with then-State Sen. Bankston’s sham rental of his Gulf Shores condo to video poker operator Fred Goodson for $1,555 per week.

Bankston’s conviction was UPHELD by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in July 1999.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry DISAGREES. But Landry’s desire to run for governor against John Bel Edwards in 2019 is the worst-kept secret in Baton Rouge, so he’s going to do and say anything he can to embarrass the governor.

U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, also being mentioned as a potential opponent for Edwards in two years and who was instrumental in obtaining federal flood recover money for Louisiana, also takes issue with the decision to cancel the IEM contract and to start the bid process all over.

“This is very disappointing news,” Graves said, adding that the decision will only serve to further delay needed flood relief funds. “It is impossible to explain to flood victims why $1.6 billion in recovery dollars are stuck in the bureaucracy while homes remain gutted, molded and uninsulated.”

Graves said obtaining the federal money “wasn’t easy and now every time we talk to the Appropriations Committee and leadership folks, they cite the fact that we haven’t spent what we already received. It’s a concern absolutely.”

That politicians, lawyers and contractors would put their own interests ahead of those of people who have been forced out of their homes—some for a year now—only serves to drive home the point that while there has been a change of administrations in Louisiana, nothing really has changed.

18 Responses

And how is it even remotely possible that it can cost $250 million to administer a flood relief program of this size? What would an Administrator do or what deliverables would be provided that could possibly justify this kind of cost?

Seems like the element of corruption is found amongst that 1% privileged few that Edwards caters to while he himself is a crypto-chosenite. Of course it is all crooked and money is just waiting to be skimmed off the top by the corruption kings of white collar financial fraud. Bankston being given his position is just the fox guarding the henhouse for the other foxes to swoop in for the financial kill.

That’s totally correct. Having acknowledged that, it appears any lines of distinction between Jindal and Edwards are getting harder and harder to discern. If anyone wants to see specificity of Bankston’s dialogue on FBI recorded wiretaps, you may do so here: http://www.soundoffla.com/?p=652.

Any governor (Republican, Democrat, or whatever party of which any future governor may belong), should be soundly defeated in the next election if all of the quality, ethical lawyers in Louisiana must be passed over in favor of Larry S. Bankston. It’s that simple.

As an outsider (not living in LA) doing disaster work in LA, corruption is one element that defines LA culture. There are many beautiful elements to your culture; corruption is not one of them. The voters talk about corruption as most people talk about their favorite sports team. You need to change it.

There are a few beautiful elements to our culture. Unfortunately there are many more ugly ones besides ingrained corruption, which is why we always come in 50th on the lists of best states to live in. Just a small selection would have to include rampant racism, xenophobia, ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and bigotry. One thing that would help is if we required a semester abroad for all LSU degrees, so that our best educated people had an opportunity to see that there are other ways of living than the one they happened to grow up with.

Yes, Edwards did vote in favor of the Bill the Bill received 100% support in committee and 100% support in the House when we got to Senate committee Representative Pierre held the Bill, it was suggested that we would request a study.
Interesting it was Senator Nevers which later became Governor Edwards’s Chief of Staff which made the statement:
“Representative Pierre. I think you’re trying to do the right thing and protect us, all because the contractors across our state and I certainly commend you for that and commend you, sir, for your testimony. But I do think everyone needs to get into a room, those that are stakeholders in this, and let’s discuss how to protect local government, as well as how to protect our contractors and businesses in our state.”

One thing Kennedy has in common with Jindal, he rarely misses an opportunity to get in front of a parade long already in progress. I wonder what his statement would have been had a fellow Trump supporter been elected governor.

Not to say this whole mess doesn’t stink, but nothing like trying to work a little self-promotion in while joining the many others already critical of the Restore Louisiana program, including me and most anybody else not in a coma or working on it.

Gov. Edwards branded “clueless” in congressional hearing today. As I have said ad nauseum, the worst thing here is not the corruption, it is that more an a year since the north Louisiana Flood and almost 8 months since the south Louisiana Flood and this much-touted $1.6B program has gone NOWHERE.

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